Red Squig Racing - Tag - Horus HeresyCollecting, painting, and playing Orks in 40k. Mostly Speed Freeks.2016-09-02T11:12:38+01:00Da Bossurn:md5:41614DotclearTemptation and Sublimationurn:md5:95c147ed5871422f0be104d79e05bacb2015-10-18T15:08:00+01:00Da BossHorus HeresyInfinity <p>In the last several months, I've been looking more and more at playing Horus
Heresy. Several friends of mine have gotten into it and have said how much they
enjoy it. Whenever I start to get tempted by a game like this, I start looking
around for more information on it, ostensibly so I can make an informed
decision, but with the handy side-effect of scratching the itch a bit without
requiring a lot of expenditure. The unfortunate consequence of this approach is
I end up thinking more about the game, which can then spiral into buying a
bunch of stuff. That's not always the case, reading up on Warmahordes put me
off that system, but it does often happen.</p>
<p>There are a couple of problems with diving head first into the Heresy for me
though. The first is that I naturally baulk at spending the kind of money that
is required for a full Forge World army. I know that I could use cheaper models
from GW or a 3rd party company, but I'm not keen on that sort of compromise.
Part of my reasoning when getting back into the hobby was that I could now
afford to buy the things I wanted and I don't have to compromise as I did when
I was a kid. That does kind of contradict what I said about not wanting to
spend money, but the way I compensate for being able to buy pretty much
whatever I want is to try to focus on only one thing at a time. When I was a
kid I would have happily collected twenty armies at once but I couldn't afford
it. Now I'm an adult and I can afford it, I (in theory) possess the willpower
to pick one army and stick with it, thereby avoiding spending huge sums of
money on things that are only going to sit unused in boxes for the rest of
time. This brings me to the second problem with starting Horus Heresy, which is
that I still have plenty of Orks to build and paint. I should be concentrating
on them, not buying an expensive new army.</p>
<p>I decided that I would try to direct my attention elsewhere, to something
that would be less expensive and require less time than a full Heresy army. I
looked around at various other systems (which is why I was looking at
Warmahordes), and I got caught on <a href="http://infinitythegame.com/">Infinity</a>. I've looked at it before and
thought it looked cool, this time I dug a bit deeper into the game. I like that
they make the rules and unit profiles available for free online, I also like
the idea that even when it's not your turn you get to play due to automatic
reaction orders. The hard sci-fi/anime setting really works for me as well, and
the low model count is a major plus given the speed of my painting and the fact
that I'm already committed to an Ork army that naturally comes with a high
number of minis. Personally, I like to read about the background before I get
into a game, particularly when it comes to choosing an army to play. In that
sense, the set-up that Corvus Belli have for Infinity of giving the rules away
but putting the background in the book you have to pay for worked really well
(for them), as I had enough free reading material to get me interested, but I
had a clear reason and desire to buy the book. I picked up the rulebook and
core book set and spent a few pleasant evenings reading through it. I'm
intending to play <a href="http://infinitythegame.com/faction_ALE.php">Aleph</a>, but I haven't bought
anything beyond the main books yet. While I was in the prevaricating phase of
“I really like the look of this” but “should I really start a new game and army
and everything that goes with it”, Corvus Belli announced the new version of
the Human Sphere book would be out in December. That will have a bunch more
background information, particularly on Aleph, so I was able to put any further
purchases off until then (although I do keep looking at the <a href="http://store.infinitythegame.com/articulo.php?f=1&amp;s=120&amp;o=3&amp;id=2344">
Operation Icestorm box</a>).</p>
<p>All of which satisfied my urge to start buying a new army, with a minimum of
expenditure. I was very pleased with how the whole thing had worked out.
Unfortunately, then a friend of mine decided to sell up his Horus Heresy stuff,
so I ended up buying his <a href="http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/The-Horus-Heresy-Legiones-Astartes-Crusade-Army-List">
Crusade Army list</a> and <a href="http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/The-Horus-Heresy-Legiones-Astartes-Isstvan-Campaign-Legions">
Isstvan campaign legions</a> red books. It was really a moral decision, I was
helping by buying them and my desires didn't come into it one way or the other
<img src="/themes/default/smilies/wink.png" alt=";)" class="smiley" /> <a href="http://www.redsquigracing.com/public/HH_Infinity_Books.JPG"><img src="http://www.redsquigracing.com/public/.HH_Infinity_Books_m.jpg" alt="Horus Heresy and Infinity books" style="display:block; margin:0 auto;" title="Horus Heresy and Infinity books, Oct 2015" /></a></p>http://www.redsquigracing.com/post/2015/10/18/Temptation-and-Sublimation#comment-formhttp://www.redsquigracing.com/feed/atom/comments/834116Review: The Damnation of Pythosurn:md5:0197653c7e6f1ca45d3be5c0e7d933212014-08-27T22:46:00+01:00Da BossHorus HeresyReview<p>I'll try to keep the part of this post on the main page spoiler free, click
through for the full post but be warned.</p>
<p>Overall, I was not hugely impressed with <a href="http://www.blacklibrary.com/horus-heresy/damnation-of-pythos-hardback.html">this
book</a>. I have to admit the main reason I bought it is that it's part of the
Horus Heresy series and I'm pretty heavily committed to them at this point. It
felt like they wanted to make sure the <a href="http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warzone-Pandorax-EN">Pandorax campaign</a>
was fully embedded in the background, so decided they would tie it in to the
Heresy. As a result, I was left with the feeling that it was a bit of a cheap
cash-in. The story itself isn't bad, but it isn't stellar either. If you're
particularly into the Horus Heresy series (or Pandorax campaign I suppose),
then this book has a place in your collection. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend
it.</p> <p>SPOILERS</p>
<p>The book covers the Shattered Legions after escaping Isstvan as they
investigate a warp anomaly in the Pythos system. In particular it examines how
the Iron Hands are reacting to the loss of Ferrus Manus. There's quite a bit of
discussion of the different amounts of enhancement the various characters have
and how strongly they're into the whole “The flesh is weak” philosophy. If
you're looking for an examination of the Iron Hands and their thinking though,
I'd recommend <a href="http://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-40000/Space-Marine-Battles/wrath-of-iron-ebook.html">
Wrath of Iron</a> before The Damnation of Pythos any day of the week.</p>
<p>The Salamander and Raven Guard characters felt very much like bit parts,
mainly included to make it seem slightly more plausible for the Iron Hands to
not abandon the colonists to their fate. That no-one asks the colonists too
many detailed questions feels to me like something of a hole in the plot. I
appreciate that at this stage in the background the Loyalists don't really know
the full danger of cultists and daemons and this story would serve as part of
that learning process, except that no-one makes it out alive to pass the lesson
on. In some ways it's a microcosm of what's happening to the Imperium at large,
with the Iron Hands' effort to harness the power of the Warp backfiring
horribly and the Imperial Creed spreading among the regular humans as a
response to being exposed to a bit more of the darkness underlying their
reality.</p>
<p>I think ultimately my main problem with the story is that the characters
never have a chance to really affect the plot. They have no idea of what
they're dealing with and no way of figuring it out. Effectively they're playing
a game where they don't know the rules, so it's not much of a surprise when
they lose. They do at least go down swinging, but the epilogue robs even that
of any meaning. While the ship of daemons may show up later, the lack of
connection to the larger story of the Heresy up to this point means the book
feels like it doesn't add very much to the series. I even felt like it took
something away from the Veritas Ferrum audio drama, as in the afterword David
Annandale reveals it came out of writing this book and it seems like it only
exists to set the scene and introduce a group of characters who are promptly
bumped off.</p>http://www.redsquigracing.com/post/2014/08/27/Review%3A-The-Damnation-of-Pythos#comment-formhttp://www.redsquigracing.com/feed/atom/comments/793621